It is a firm and longstanding belief of mine that every healthy citizen living in a developed service economy should spend several months as a waiter or waitress. Only then can you truly experience how it feels to be held in contempt by a significant proportion of the public, as well as, far too often, your own employers and, if you’re extremely unlucky, a furious, overworked chef to boot. (As a side note, it would also help with the obesity crisis – it’s very difficult to be fat when you are the only staff member handling 75 covers on a Saturday evening).

Working in a restaurant, particularly in service-based economies such as Britain and the US, is often a thankless, dispiriting task. Your labour is regarded as unskilled, and unlike in France or Italy, there is very little respect for your position. You rarely see older people working in restaurants as you do there, partly because the work is regarded by many as a last resort for those with no other options or abilities, and partly because our emphasis on grinning, obsequious customer service above all else means we work our service staff into the ground (God forbid you should be allowed to read a book during a quiet shift. You can maybe watch the big screen, like everyone else, but only if you’re standing up and smiling).

So everyone should be a waiter or waitress for a while, because then perhaps we would treat those who wait on us better. I say this because either the owners of pizza chain Zizzi have never worked their own tables, or they have forgotten how it feels to do it. This week, Zizzi cut credit card tips and service charge payments, as well as the choice of free staff meals available. Front of house staff will now receive 50% of the sum collected, with the rest distributed to kitchen staff and supervisors (tips are traditionally meant for service, not as a wage top-up, but many employers ignore this and distribute them among all staff rather than paying a fair wage). And Zizzi is not the only high street chain to make these changes: Caffè Nero recently cut free food for staff. Some believe these changes are an attempt to compensate for the new living wage of £7.20, though these companies deny this.

Almost every waiter or waitress knows how it feels to work for a stingy employer – whether it’s because your manager skims the top from the tip jar, taking a cut for themselves, or because they won’t let you have a break, so you have to eat your sandwich in the cupboard next to the bar. I once left a job because my supervisor took the meal the chef had very kindly sent up to me (unsolicited) and removed it, smirking, right in front of my face, before tipping it in the bin. I have seen ex-colleagues on the verge of passing out from exhaustion and lack of food.

It is these off-duty or ex-bar and waitress staff whom you might see in branches of places such as Côte Brasserie whispering, “Do you get the credit card tips?” as the person waiting on them tries to shake their head using only their eyeballs. Côte, admirably, backed down on its policy of keeping it for themselves, but you never can tell which other chains are in on this practice. Sadly, those of us who boycott places who treat their staff like crap (McDonald’s being the latest to make headlines due to its refusal to acknowledge the Labour party-affiliated Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union) barely make a dent in the turnover of customers. We live in a time where our high streets are becoming increasingly homogenised – every large town you visit seems to have a Costa, a Pizza Express or Wagamama, a Zizzi or Strada and, if it has slightly posher aspirations, a Carluccio’s. As a result, if you choose to boycott a chain, there may be very little in the way of other affordable dining options.

Thanks to June’s EU referendum, this is a worrying time for the restaurant industry. Many of those working in hospitality must be, I imagine, instinctively anti-Brexit. If you work in a restaurant, not only do you spend much of your time in claiming your right to breaks under European law, but your colleagues will be, in the majority, citizens of other EU countries. What would happen to this industry, looked down on by so many British people, were we to leave? Who will bring you your garlicky doughballs then? Citizens of other EU nations aren’t just helping run our chains, but are setting up their own restaurants and contributing to the culinary diversity of the nation. A gut feeling says that working conditions and pay will not improve if we go it alone.

It’s not just the EU, either. New immigration rules have seen 600 British curry houses close in 18 months, because they are unable to hire the skilled chefs that they need.

Perhaps those of an isolationist bent envisage a new halcyon period for British food where garlic and chilli are declared illegal and, with the borders firmly closed, we can all go back to boiled meat and two veg. You can probably wave goodbye to national favourite Pret a Manger, which seems to be run almost entirely on the cheery labour of those enjoying freedom of movement.

These are some of the things you think about when you have worked in a restaurant, and I will continue to think them the next time I bypass Zizzi as a dining option. You’ve got to have a little solidarity, after all. It’s just a shame more of the public don’t feel it as keenly, but they still might miss the service when it’s gone.